---
title: Diversity at Bletchley Park
date: 27 May 2015
...

During World War II, Bletchley Park was the location of the Government Code and
Cipher School (GC&CS), a secret facility ran by the British government to break
the encrypted Axis communications (History of Bletchley Park), most famously,
the Nazi Enigma cipher (Captain Ridley’s Shooting Party). The Axis nations
(Germany, Japan, etc.) used various “codes and ciphers” for military
communications, and the intelligence that was recovered from breaking these
codes “was of vital importance to \[England’s\] national security and ultimate
victory” (History of Bletchley Park). It has been estimated that the
intelligence recovered at Bletchley Park shortened World War II by over a year
and saved millions of lives (Copeland).

Furthermore, the personnel themselves of Bletchley Park were demographically
diverse. Scott Page, a writer about diversity, provides the analogy of
Bletchley Park attempting to “cast a wide net... \[to enable\] diverse fishes
\[to\] swim together” (Page 3). The actual work performed at Bletchley Park was
an incredibly difficult mental task by itself as the ciphers were complex and
computers had not been developed yet (cfh). However, the work was solely
mental; anybody, regardless of their gender, country of origin, religion, or
other factors, could be qualified to become a codebreaker. As a result of the
difficult nature of the work performed at Bletchley Park and therefore the
relatively few number of people fit to be codebreakers, diversity was essential
to the success of Bletchley Park; if Bletchley Park was not diverse, far too
many important people would have been overlooked in the recruiting process, and
the codebreakers would be collectively under-qualified.

The roles of women at Bletchley Park provide a practical example of the
necessity of diversity. During World War II, there were simply not enough men
available, and women provided a new, untapped sector of the population to
recruit. Outside of Bletchley Park specifically, the British government
recognized this need, and in December 1941, some women were conscripted
alongside of men to work in the “auxiliary units of the armed forces” (UK
Parliament). While this act exempted many more women from service than men, it
still shows the importance of women during war.

One example of a female codebreaker at Bletchley Park was Joan Clarke (Hinsley
113). In her memoir, Clarke reflected that, “the duller routine clerical work
was \[inevitably\] done by women, since only men... could join GC&CS” (Hinsley
115). While Clarke was clearly able to evade conforming to these rigid, sexist
gender roles, this first-hand account shows how sexism, at times, was
unfortunately common. Furthermore, Clarke *was* treated as a normal
codebreaker, but this treatment was “obviously because of \[her\] degree”
because it was “before \[Clarke\] had any chance of proving \[herself\]”
(Hinsley 113). While Joan Clarke did *have* a job as a codebreaker at Bletchley
Park, she still witnessed sexism.

However, there *were* female codebreakers who had a much better experience with
respect to their gender. For instance, Mavis Batey and Margaret Rock, alongside
their boss, Dilly Knox, were two women whose work was critical to the Allied
victory at D-Day (Telegraph). Their team was responsible for breaking the
Abwehr Enigma machine, one of the variants of the Enigma machine used by the
Germans, which allowed “the British... to read the high-level Abwehr messages”
(Telegraph). Their work was notable as the decrypted messages were used in the
Allied Double Cross Deception plan (Telegraph). These women had a direct,
positive effect on the war by enabling the deception to work effectively.

Sexual orientation differentiated Alan Turing from many of his coworkers; in
addition to being one of the most important people at Bletchley Park, Turing
was a gay man during a time period where being gay was illegal (Wansell). This
ironic position was summarized by another cryptanalyst who worked with Turing,
Jack Good (Irving John Good):

> \[It\] was a good thing that the authorities hadn’t known Turing was a
> homosexual during the war, because, if they had, they would have fired him–
> and we would have lost. (Wansell)

Despite Turing’s work for Britain, he was nonetheless “convicted of gross
indecency with a\[nother\] male \[sic\]” and forced to take oestrogen
injections as a result (Wansell). Turing unfortunately committed suicide as a
result (Wansell), although there remains controversy as the cause of death,
cyanide poisoning, may have been an accident and not a deliberate suicide
(Pease).

Religion was another factor contributing to diversity at Bletchley Park.  There
were many high-ranking Jewish cryptanalysts (Sugarman). The most notable
example was Irving John Good (birth name Isidore Jacob Gudak), a cryptanalyst
who worked under Alan Turing (Sugarman). Another example was Walter Eytan, who,
in addition to his work at Bletchley Park, was an Israeli diplomat and an
active Zionist (Joffe). As antisemitism was ironically active during World War
II in Britain (Goldman), it is particularly exceptional that these people were
able to accomplish everything they did.

Furthermore, while Bletchley Park was British, there *was* collaboration
between Britain and other Allied intelligence agencies. While not involving
Bletchley Park directly per se, one example of collaboration between countries
was the development of the original bombe, the machine used to break Enigma,
created by the Polish intelligence. It was only later that the British
developed their new, improved bombe machine (Kahn). These machines were one of
the important tangible results of Bletchley Park as they enabled the
codebreaking process to be greatly expedited (Carter).

The United States Department of War also collaborated with the Government Code
and Cipher School. Bletchley Park was mainly responsible for decrypting the
“German Machine Ciphers”; a now declassified document from the National
Security Agency details the organization of codebreaking agencies across
international borders (United States War Department 6-8). International
collaboration, by definition, allows even more people to work on a particular
problem; a larger workforce *is*, ultimately, the benefit of diversity.

The unconventional recruiting process used at Bletchley Park took into account
the critical need for diversity. The process focused on finding minds capable
of performing this highly difficult and unconventional work required, as
opposed to simply finding people with degrees in relevant fields (Budiansky
138). As traditional résumés clearly were little aid to recruiters, social
circles were frequently leveraged (Ettridge) as a usable but non-ideal
alternative to more objective methods of finding employees.

In response to the need to find large amounts of capable people, rather obscure
recruitment practices developed. One notable example of this phenomenon was the
use of a crossword puzzle competition organized through the newspaper, *The
Daily Telegram*. Crossword experts who claimed to have completed every puzzle
from *The Daily Telegram* were invited to a timed competition. After, some
contestants received letters in the mail recruiting them to work for the
Government Code and Cipher School, although they were not told the ulterior
purpose of the letter immediately due to security concerns (Budiansky 137-138).
Similar to the strategy used at Bletchley Park, the United States intelligence
agencies recruited their cryptanalysts through puzzles and cryptograms
(Budiansky 138).

In addition to diversity being essential, diversity was somewhat transparent
due to the culture at Bletchley Park; this transparency was a direct effect of
being in a state of war. Regardless of potential minority groups, everyone was
normalized by both the omnipresent sense of a “common enemy” (Grey 114) and
also the secrecy, perpetuated by propaganda slogans such as “careless talk
costs lives” (Grey 113). These factors arguably simplified the lives of the
people in minority groups at Bletchley Park by forcing potentially bigoted
workers to focus on *only* their work as opposed to their coworkers.

In normal conditions, during a normal time period, prejudice and discrimination
is highly unethical. At war time, however, prejudice is detrimental and
potentially lethal. The GC&CS needed the skills of *anyone* who could assist
their work, regardless of who they were or traditional bias. For example, in
England during 1933, there were three hundred thousand Jews (Jewish Population
of Europe in 1933: Population Data By Country); inevitably, there were *some*
Jewish cryptanalysts; clearly half of the population was female; inevitably,
there were *some* female cryptanalysts. Sexism, antisemitism, and similar
prejudices *had* to be overcome, as the most brilliant cryptographers could
have been hidden in any one of these minority groups. Unfortunately, none of
these factors were eliminated entirely. Joan Clarke, for instance, still
experienced *some* degree of sexism, and Alan Turing was forced to stay in the
closet as his very identity risked both his job and his life.  However,
conditions were still better for these people than they would likely have been
during a less urgent time period. When a country is in active danger and at
war, people are *forced* to change, positively *or* negatively.

This phenomenon was clearly present at Bletchley Park during World War II as
well as the general Allied nations during this time period. One notable example
of this effect in other Allied nations was the idea of ’Rosie the Riveter’, a
symbol of feminism that called American women in the workforce when many jobs
were left unfilled due to male conscription in the United States (Rosie the
Riveter). Fundamentally, during times like World War II, diversity is
*essential* in all aspects parts of life, and the progressive workforce at
Bletchley Park was no exception.

---

Budiansky, Stephen. *Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in
World War II*. New York, NY: Touchstone, 2000.

“Captain Ridley’s Shooting Party”. Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park Trust.
2015. Web. 17 May 2015.

Carter, Frank. *The Turing Bombe*. The Rutherford Journal. The Rutherford
Journal, n.d. Web. 16 May 2015.

cfh. “Mathematically, why was the Enigma machine so hard to crack?”.
Mathematics. StackExchange, 18 Apr 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.

Copeland, Jack. *Alan Turing: The codebreaker who saved ’millions of lives’*.
BBC. BBC, 19 June 2012. Web. 17 May 2015.

Ettridge, Joy. *WW2, People’s War*. *BBC*. BBC, 07 June 2005. Web. 08 May 2015.

Goldman, Aaron. *The Resurgence of Antisemitism in Britain during World War
II*. JSTOR. Indiana University Press, 1984. Web. 17 May 15\
&lt;http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4467242&gt;.

Grey, Christopher. *Decoding Organization: Bletchley Park, Codebreaking, and
Organization Studies*. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Hinsley, F.H. and Stripp, A. *Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley
Park*. Berkshire, Britain: Oxford University Press, 1993.

“History of Bletchley Park”. Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park Trust. 2015.  Web.
12 May 2015.

“Jewish Population of Europe in 1933: Population Data By Country”.  Holocaust
Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 20 Jun
2014. Web. 16 May 2015.

Joffe, Lawrence. *Obituary: Walter Eytan*. thegaurdian. 28 May 2001.  Web. 16
May 2015.

Kahn, David. *The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret
Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet*. 1967. New York, NY:
Scribner, 1996.

*Mavis Batey - obituary*. The Telegraph. 13 Nov 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.

Page, Scott E. *The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better
Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies*. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 2007.

Pease, Roland. *Alan Turing: Inquest’s suicide verdict ’not supportable’*. BBC.
BBC, 26 June 2012. Web. 17 May 2015.

“Rosie the Riveter”. History. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.

Sugarman, Martin. *World War II: Jewish Personnel at Bletchley Park*.  n.p,
2015. Web. 04 May 2015.

UK Parliament. *Conscription: the Second World War*. UK Parliament, n.d.  Web.
08 May 2015.

United States War Department. *Agreement between British Government Code and
Cipher School and US War Department in regard to certain “Special
Intellignence”*. *National Security Agency*. NSA, June 1943. Web. 05 Apr
2015. Declassified 07 Apr 2010.

Wansell, Geoffrey. *How Britain drove its greatest genius Alan Turing to
suicide... just for being gay*. dailymail. 11 Sep 2009. Web. 16 May 2015.

---

Author's note: This paper was originally written for my combined
English-History class. It was adapted for blog publication on 5 Feb 2017.  I
thus thank my teacher for forcing me to wr-- supporting me throughout the
writing process and helping me grow as a thinker, as well as my parents for
doing the same.


